Masquerade
by Milu Georgia
Summary: Winter Fic Exchange / An accident brings a secret to light no one was aware of. Bess is determined to make sure that it will be alright in the end. (Blake Bess bonding) ["It's alright, Blake," she whispered and then pulled him closer to her body, until she was able to put her arms around his trembling shoulders in the solitude of the darkness. "It's gonna be alright, I promise."]


Second prompt I finished. Still exhausted, still sick, 4 a.m. The grind is real.  
I'm curious what you think of this - not sure it turned out the way I wanted to, quite liked the latter part of the story, the ending is crap imo. Lemme know.  
Btw: Planned this one out before the episode with Will, not sure if certain circumstances were already known before, but I included it, since it seemed to fit quite well.

Prompt: Some interaction between Blake and Elizabeth (with or without the fest of the family) where he's not in a professional role. Basically something where he can be more relaxed. A friends relationship vs. coworker/boss. If that makes sense? Feel free to torment him in the process too. Blake torment is always fun.

* * *

 **Music tip:  
Sleeping At Last - Mars**

* * *

Masquerade

* * *

It is in one of those moments, when everything seems to be alright.

Just recently she had managed to convince her brother that living all around the world wasn't the right thing for his family, himself and for her; a critical event over in Europe had been solved thanks to her brilliant team and her own kids were fine for once. No drama, no problems beside the usual teenager-stuff, no you-are-a-bad-parent-look in their eyes that reminded her of ice creams on hot summer days and the smell of burning wood in freezing snow storms. Sometimes they were too similar to her husband.

"…and after that we'll meet with Russell Jackson at around 3 p.m. in the White House."  
Blake's voice rambled on an on in the quiet back of the car, as they entered a tunnel below Washington DC on their way back to her office. It had been a calm week, too rare in the eyes of her husband and her staff, but Elizabeth couldn't ignore the growing feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her it was only the calm before the next storm.

And up until now it had always been that way, hadn't it?  
What would it be this time? A group of citizens caught in the crossfire of a rebelling country and its thick-minded leader? Two men butting their heads and nearly causing a war in Middle East? Or something more close to home – one of her children going rouge, or a flame neither Henry nor her could stand?

"…then we'll pretty much be – ma'am?"  
Without moving her head away from the few scattered cars in the tunnel she glanced at Blake, who sat in front of her with one of those infamous looks of his she got to read quite good during the time they had spent together so far. His right eyebrow was slightly raised and even though he still made a patient and very polite impression on the outside, she could clearly see the hidden disapproval and amusement in his eyes.

"Yes I'm listening, Blake. After Russell had one of his moods, we'll head over to the State Department again to see -"

Her voice cut off abruptly and for a split second she feared to have gone either deaf or mute. Then her body was pulled into impossible directions and the sight in front of her eyes, already limited by the dim lights in the tunnel, blurred into a bizarre mix of dark colors, before the ear-deafening noise finally hit her.  
For a moment she was back in Iran, trapped under the dead body of her friend and unable to help the screaming kid in the corner of the room.

But the situation was different, her struggling mind told her and eased the flaring panic in her veins a little bit. The sound was different. There were no bombs, no high screams, no audible shots and not the taste of burning smoke in the back of her throat.  
Instead there was a high screeching noise, metal on metal, tires burning the rubber trying to stop the car and the shouts of her Security Detail she couldn't make out, before it all went deadly quiet in an instant.

A car crash.

' _Breathe, babe, easy. Just like that, in and out,'_ the calm voice of her husband was brought to the front of her mind out of an old memory, when panic attacks had still been her thing. And so she complied silently without revolting for once, clutched the seatbelt that had secured her to her seat tightly in her hands and closed her eyes to get herself together.  
There was no time to freak out now. Later, safe and secure in Henry's arms, where no one could see her shaking out of fear. As a wife. Not the Secretary of State.

"Ma'am?! Are you alright?"  
The voice from up front pulled her out of her reverie. It was one of the agents. Quickly she unstrapped herself and threw a short glance at Blake, whose face was barely visible in the sudden darkness of the car. Nonetheless he seemed to be alright for the moment, so she crawled on the bench beside of him and mumbled some reassuring words in his direction, as one of the agents started talking in a frantic voice. Both seemed to be alright themselves, one was already talking to someone on the radio, probably the other cars and agents that were rushing towards them already.

"Someone crashed into us, ma'am, a car accident on the other lane I think. Thankfully our car is armored…"  
He rambled on and tried to make sure she was not hurt every two seconds, but regarding the situation she let him and took the time to reassure herself, that the two agents in front of her were uninjured. She was about to ask them about the other car involved, when a movement to her right pulled her attention away for a short second. In the darkness, only chased away by the dim lights from outside in the tunnel, Blake's slim form was barely seeable, nonetheless she could feel him slipping away from her and onto the floor between the two seats.  
Panic rose again in an instant, as she knelt down in front of her assistant ignoring the trailing off voices of the agents.

Had she been wrong? Had he been injured somehow? A head injury?  
With a curse on her lips directed at her own improvidence she came a bit closer and called his name, but he didn't even blink. No reaction whatsoever. Something ugly reared its head and the heavy feeling from before the accident returned to her stomach and made her nauseous.

"Blake?"

Nothing.  
Carefully she laid her hands on his arms and with growing worry she noticed him shaking all over his body. His eyes were staring at his hands resting on his knees. Again she called for him, tried to engage him in a conversation, but his breath came too quick and his eyes were still miles away from her.  
Maybe he really had a head wound – five seconds later she abandoned that theory as quickly as it had taken over her mind a moment ago. Slowly she had moved around him, had tried to see something in the darkness, but her hands couldn't find a wet spot anywhere, not even a bump on his head.  
As far as she could see he was physically alright.

And then, when she went over his strange symptoms once more in her head, it finally made sense.'  
He was having a panic attack.

It was different than the ones she had in the past, more subtle, less obvious, but still all the same. Most of all he would be feeling too enclosed in the tiny space the car's floor provided, so she leaned back again to give him some breathing space. Her hands left his arms, but instead of severing the physical contact to him completely, she placed her cold hands onto his cheeks to help him snap out of it.  
"Blake, hun, it'll be alright, I promise you. No one is hurt, in a second the other agents will get us out of the car and-"

Something made him snap out of it in an instant, his low mumbling stopped and for the first time in the past minutes he returned her stare without that frightening glaze in his eyes. For a second they just looked at each other, before sudden tears appeared in the corners of his eyes and threatened to spill over, as his muscles visibly clenched up.

"I- I am so sorry, ma'am, I shouldn't have- I should-"  
He was stumbling over his words, obviously he was utterly confused, as much as her to be honest, about why in the world he was everything but his usual self at the moment. It wasn't like he hadn't been in a stressful or dangerous situation before, quite the contrary. But being apart of a car crash in a mostly safe and armored car must have done something to him she wasn't aware of yet.  
His shaking voice was still trying to save his appearance, when she finally cut him off softly and crawled a little bit closer, now that he was with her again. "Don't worry, everything's fine, okay Blake? Just breathe with me, I'm not going anywhere."  
And just like that she used a tone in her voice she usually reserved for her kids; something to reassure them, to calm them down after a horrible nightmare or when the news were too dark and looming for their bright minds. But how could she not while caring for someone who looked barely above Stevie's age and as if he could be one of her own, especially now?

Her staff had always been close, even though they had been recruited by her predecessor, but Blake seemed to have held a special place in their minds. One of the youngest, one from outside the tight-knit group, one everyone felt eager to look after in their own ways.  
Nadine always made sure he ate enough, when they were longer in the office once again thanks to a more or less dangerous crisis.  
Matt and Daisy took him out to a bar every once in a while, even though they had already conveyed that feeling the group shared among themselves to Blake ages ago.  
Jay was like an older brother almost, always showing him pictures of his little family, as if he was apart of it.

Where did that leave her?  
As their boss she had to maintain some distance, but she couldn't help herself being tied in slowly but surely. And how could she ever turn away from one of her own, when they were in need, whatever the cause might be?

"It's alright, Blake," she whispered and then pulled him closer to her body, until she was able to put her arms around his trembling shoulders in the solitude of the darkness. "It's gonna be alright, I promise."  
Her voice was barely above a whisper, as his clenched muscles finally began to relax with Blake giving in to her unusual close embrace. And amidst the quiet sobs coming from her shoulder she promised herself to never see him look so incredibly vulnerable ever again.

* * *

"-should prepare a quick statement, after all nothing… Ma'am?"

"No worries, we have been checked out at the hospital as you might know by now, everything is fine. I just needed something from my office before driving home," she tried to stop the questions effectively, as her main staff still roaming around her office approached Elizabeth and the eerily quiet Blake walking behind her.

"We let your family know that you are alright," Nadine told her, while her eyes took in the Secretary's unharmed form. With a nod Elizabeth wordlessly told her that she already had spoken to them, after all the news were worryingly fast at causing unnecessary tension and drama whenever they could.  
The concerned looks of her staff slowly eased up and they were quick to fall back into their usual routine tackling a problem. "We were about to release a quick statement, just saying that you were unharmed and not responsible for the crash," Daisy informed her while looking up from her pad.

Matt was the next to inform her about Russell Jackson calling the office, but something else caught her attention. Blake would have jumped to all of this immediately – maybe with a cup of coffee for her or the needed files already in his hands ready to go. He always had an eye on making her as comfortable as possible. Contrary to his usual behavior though he was still eerily quiet and silently brushed past them to get to his desk. The attention of the others continued to rest on the Secretary herself, as Jay gave her a friendly reminder that even though they were not injured, they probably still needed some rest.

"I just need to take care of one important thing first, then you will be rid of me for the rest of the day," she told them with a reassuring smile on her lips that felt too fake for her to let it reach her eyes.  
"Blake, can you please get-" her voice trailed off, at a loss of what to use as a pretense to talk to him in her office alone, but as if nothing had happened he nodded with a confident "Of course, ma'am" and rushed past her with a map in his arms.

She was about to follow him, still aware of the group surrounding her, as she turned back to address Daisy. "Can you please get us some tea? I know it's not in your job description, but it feels like we need something to calm down after that."  
Before she had a chance to continue her way into the office, Nadine held her back and threw a hesitant look over her shoulder to where Blake had disappeared. "Ma'am, is he alright?"

So she had noticed.  
Looking up Elizabeth realized that the worried look of her Chief of Staff was shared by the others; apparently they were more attentive than she had given them credit for in the past minutes, as focused as they seemingly had been on her.  
But what to tell them? It felt far too private to talk about what had happened shortly after the accident. So far she hadn't even talked to Blake himself about it, which was why she had asked her driver to get them back to the State Department before bringing them home.

"We'll make sure he will be," she answered quietly and then turned around to solve a problem she couldn't even name yet.

"Ma'am, I am so sorry for my earlier behavior. I clearly made you uncomfortable with my unneeded unprofessionalism after the accident. Please be assured that it won't happen again."

And there he was, standing up from the couch to her right the moment she closed the door behind her with the same map resting in his arms and a steady voice that could have nearly fooled her. The lost look had vanished from his face completely, but it did absolutely nothing to ease her mind.  
It was the perfect opportunity to get this over and done with, he already had brought the topic up himself, though she noticed easily that he wouldn't be willing to say anything else apart from the fake line he just had given her any time soon. Her CIA skills jumped to the surface without her even thinking about it, while his body language was telling her more in the blink of an eye than he would her ever want to know.  
She needed to come up with a different plan to make him talk.

"Don't worry about it," she tried to ease his mind with skilled pretense, as if she wasn't aware of the bigger problem looming behind his mask, "It was understandable in the moment, believe me. I have to think of my own panic attacks shortly after Iran – gave you one hell of a scare, didn't I?"  
Her aimless steps led her to her desk, where she put her glasses on and threw an unfocused look at the newest papers. Like she had anticipated he thought she tried to lift the mood regardless of the topic he had wanted to brush off as fast as possible and replied with a shadow of his usual sarcastic dryness in his voice, "Wasn't as bad as Russell Jackson trying to get past me with this murderous look in his eyes last week."

How to proceed? How to get to him?  
Never before had she been in the position to get something from Blake that he was hiding from her. Up until now he had done everything he could to get her all she needed even before she was aware of it herself.  
Usually she would approach an enemy by lulling him in and then striking when he was most vulnerable - but this was Blake; wonderful, young Blake, who had done nothing wrong to deserve such a treatment.  
Maybe it would be best to let him know that someone cared first of all. In the end it was his decision, no matter how much she wanted to help him.

"What happened in the car, Blake?"  
Leaning against her desk, far away enough to prevent him from feeling pressed, she looked up into his surprised eyes. For the first time ever he refused to answer her and stayed silent.  
"It was an understandable reaction, as much as my panic attack after Iran was, but like then there usually is something more to it."

As expected he tried to evade her and mumbled incomprehensible excuses, twice he threw a longing look at the door and when it began to hurt to see him struggle so much, she gave him a way out by changing the topic too abruptly for him to see what she wanted to achieve.  
"Blake, are you still free on Sunday by any chance?"

* * *

The voices of her laughing children and a reprimanding Henry were still audible, when Elizabeth entered the kitchen followed by Blake who put the empty dishes onto the counter. There was nothing left of that torn-up boy she had last seen on Friday afternoon in her office, as Blake leaned against the counter right of the fridge and cheekily began with proper air quotes, "I'm still waiting for this _'urgent China stuff'_ you wanted to talk about, you know?"

"I might have lied about that," she replied with her guilty-but-not-really-voice, while she put the rest of the chicken away in a box for later.

"I figured."  
His answer was dry as usual, nonetheless he appeared to be less uptight than normal, even though he still behaved quite formal. Being the Secretary of State's personal assistant was hard to shake off, she imagined.

"How are you doing, Blake?" she asked the same question like her husband just an hour earlier, but this time it was obvious to both of them that she referred to the accident. By glancing up shortly she saw the same look in his eyes he had worn Friday and mere seconds later he wanted to lead the topic away from what she had wanted to know ever since his panic attack.

"Still a bit sore, ma'am, but nothing that can't be made better by a good meal."

"Blake…"  
Her reprimanding tone and the sharp look she gave him were enough to get rid of the nervous smile gracing his lips, as he sighed and she continued, "Keeping it bottled up is doing nothing good for you or anyone else involved."  
For a moment she feared that her serious suggestion fell on deaf ears. Instead of giving her another reaction, some mumbled words eager to change the topic, Blake's head snapped up at the loud laugh from the dining room they could look into from their position in the kitchen. And then his eyes took on a glaze she hadn't seen before with him, his tense stance relaxed a little bit and he kept on watching her loved ones with an expression she couldn't read. It made her feel uneasy, most of the time she could figure out easily what the people around her were thinking by the look in their eyes, but Blake's was so unfamiliar…  
Still she didn't dare to bring him back to their conversation. It was different than before, but she hoped that it would aid her in her task to fix it – whatever _it_ was. So as to not disrupt the young man she slowly leaned on the counter that separated the two of them and partly watched her unknowing family, partly Blake.

"I forgot how this can feel like."  
His voice was still far, far away and the absent look in his eyes had not vanished yet. For the first time in forever she wasn't sure what to say, but he still seemed too lost in his own thoughts to continued by himself, so she did something quite unusual for her regarding the situation.  
"A warm meal that is not takeout for once?" she joked and contrary to her belief he finally looked at her with a genuine smile on his face she hadn't seen before. Not once. It stole her breath away for a second, when the thought entered her mind that he might have always held back in the office on a level that was beyond simple professionalism. Every conversation, every joke shared with his colleagues…  
Then the apprehension returned into his eyes with an amount of nervousness that made her feel queasy. This time she waited silently for him to continue and when he looked away once more, his voice was barely audible.

"Family basically."  
…what was that supposed to mean?  
She had read his file, of course she did, but other than the fact that his relatives lived on the other side of the country and that he not unlike her had lost –  
Oh.

"My mother and I were on our way to her brother, when another car ignored the red light and hit us head-on."  
Her breath caught in her throat and several moments passed, in which she grabbed the counter to keep herself upright. Blake though paid her no mind and continued in a detached voice that reminded her too much of her brother's.

"It was in the middle of the night just outside of town. He died immediately. She had to suffer and still tried to calm me down, while she was bleeding out."  
Something bitter slipped into his tone and made her frown, despite the shock that was seeping through her veins.

"She died on the way to the hospital."  
His voice finally broke. Only when Elizabeth began to speak did his eyes focus on the here and now again. Nonetheless he avoided her eyes like the plague.  
"How old were you?" – "Around seven. My father had left long before that, so my uncle took me in."

"…both of my parents died in a car crash."  
He spun around in a fraction of a second with wide opened eyes, but instead of empty condolences or misplaced apologies he asked," How didn't you… I mean, during the accident…"  
It was painfully obvious what he wanted to know, but nothing she could give him. With an apologetic smile she shook her head. "I wasn't there. My little brother was and even now he is-" her voice broke off, unable to say what she had in mind. It wasn't something she could easily put into words, when they both were struggling with it after so many years past the fatal accident.

"I should have known," she continued with a sigh and watched him closely for a reaction, but beside the surprise and something unfamiliar but not unwelcome in his eyes, there was nothing left from the broken and withdrawn man she had seen in the darkness of the car.

"You couldn't; I never told anyone at work," he replied long after her statement and took the dirty dishes to do what they were supposed to.

"It's in your file."

"Oh."

Unsure of what to say, she put the boxes with food in the fridge and took out some dessert Stevie had prepared this afternoon. "Thank you for sharing it with me, Blake."  
He looked up again, closing and opening his mouth, clearly unsure of what to say – until his eyes landed on the little cakes. For a second she feared he would space out again, but then his eyes lit up the way they had before in a way that made his whole face glow.

"My mom used to make these!"

"Sounds like she is a better cook than ours," a witty remark from the entryway disrupted the mood and with a wink Allison grabbed the cakes. Elizabeth caught her breath and quickly looked at Blake, even though there was nothing to fear. Their talk and painful confessions must have done something to him, because he smiled at her daughter without that invisible baggage on his shoulders for once.

"Oh she was incredible."  
Allison caught up quicker to the tense than Elizabeth would have liked, but her daughter was thoughtful enough to not point it out.

"What else did she make?"

Together Blake and Allison entered the dining room, happily chatting away about recipes and Bess' best kitchen disasters. The laughter of her assistant made her heart jump and glad that he finally _talked_ , freely and unhindered, gave her the hope that things wouldn't look as dark the next day as they had in the past.


End file.
